I've tried using Roland electric drums before..ok naman..its true dat volume control is a big aspect but I would have to take the side of acoustic as well. I dont like the response of the electric ones..

I use Arbiter E400 now as my practice kit here sa UK before buyin this i use the uni's yamaha dtx. i only bought this coz of my flat's limited space plus super sensitive yung mga neighbours ko with noise, even pag start lang ng auto ko nagrereklamo na sarap suntukin talga. anyway, it is expensive pero the market for electric drums here is very big that i could easily sell it off without any problem, plus i bought it second hand so the loss wont be that much if in case i cant pass it off as slightly used/almost brand new condition. so in the end i wont be spending anything kasi i intend to sell it when i return to manila na for good. pang practice lang talaga.

pero nothing beats the feel and completeness of an acoustic kit, no question about this. i wouldnt recommend an e-kit for recording because the sound is so limited, you cannot simply adjust the depth and other sound characteristics of each drum/cymbal sound which is already pre-configured into the console. unless you have an expensive roland/yamaha ekit that has a lot of drumcymbal sounds built-in that could be used separately from each other. kasi yung sakin only a few sounds like latin, jazz, big band, rock, punk, hard rock, modern rock, electronic, etc. pero for example i cant criscross sounds or i cant use the jazz ride sound with latin piccolo, pag jazz-jazz set lang, cannot be interchanged sila. pero with pro ekits amounting to more than 150k at least im sure kaya ito. but with this money, wouldnt you rather buy a starclassic or pearl masters or gretsch renown?

moreover, even if the drum module can give you different drum sounds, you need to expand the kit to accommodate effects cymbals or more crash sounds, i couldnt do much with just a hihat, 1crash and a ride. mahal yung mga extra pads or expansion kits plus you have to determine if the console can accommodate more pads or an expansion kit. plus they dont feel the same if you will go for the rubber/plasticy pads. the one that i bought is of mesh heads and you can actually adjust its tension and this actually is close enough to standard acoustic head feel, plus i can change the mesh heads with standard skins that are also tunable so that the ekit now turns into an acoustic kit with this change.

if i can only play an acoustic kit in this quiet neighbourhood i wouldnt even make a second glance at ekits. on a more friendly suggestion tone, i suggest that you spend your money on acoustic kits, you'll feel a lot better. but at the end of the day its your call, this is just my opinion. whichever way you'll have it, i'm sure you'll make a good decision. Thanks!

on my budget right now, i have more than enough to get that prodigy and the 2nd hand alesis dm5. my only worry is that my sound will only be as good as my drum module, i tested a ddrum and the dm5 side by side and the dm5 is noticeably poor on the sound libraries. then again, the ddrum is 250k